1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a protective device having a textile front decoration sheet and padding made of a polyurethane foam, silicon gel, air cone, or the like for protecting the wearer from bodily injury in the event of a relatively minor fall or impact such as might occur during sports activities such as football, skating, skateboarding, and cycling, and an illumination arrangement to help the wearer avoid more serious impacts, particularly with a motor vehicle. The invention is, for example, suitable for protecting children playing in a dark environment on or by a roadside.
2. Discussion of Related Art
Protective devices which include padding made up of a soft material such as polyurethane (PU) foam, silicon gel, air-filled panels, or the like are known. Such devices are widely used to protect football players, skaters, and cyclists from bodily injury by absorbing the force of impacts. A textile-sheet is normally stitched or otherwise attached to and supported by the soft material which constitutes the padding, and straps or fasteners are added to form, for example, calf, ankle, knee, and elbow protectors. an extra front plastic cover may be included to protect the soft material from damage due to an impact, and also to distribute an impact more uniformly over the soft material. The front plastic cover, when applied to a knee pad or elbow pad, also offers protection from scrapes and scratches.
Protection devices of the above type can also be applied to toys and exercise equipment to protect the user from bodily injury. For example, a child's bicycle might have a protection device applied to the handlebar, central bike frame, and joint nut or stem between the handlebar and the main frame. Such protection devices are usually applied without the front plastic cover sheet so that the soft material is exposed, although a cover sheet would provide some protection for the soft cushioning material.
Both types of protective pad have in common the soft cushioning material, a fastening band usually made of VELCRO.TM., and a textile or plastic cover sheet. The protective pad may be used, in addition to the purposes mentioned above, for protecting persons who have been medically treated for bone pathologies or who have skin injuries.
While protective pads of the type described above are useful to protect the wearer from impacts caused by falls and collisions with other persons, however, they are useless in the event of a collision with a motor vehicle. This is an especially serious hazard in the case of physical activities occur in a nighttime environment. For example, camping, nighttime skating, and bicycling are all exciting but dangerous nighttime activities. It is usual in these activities to wear ankle, knee, and/or elbow protectors, but only for protection when striking a non-moving object. Such pads cannot provide sufficient protection from being struck by a motor vehicle.
One way of reducing the risk of being struck by a motor vehicle is increase the visibility of the wearer. It is known, for example, to include reflectors on vehicles such as bicycles that attain speeds of as much as 30 miles per hour. The problem with such reflectors is that they are poorly visible unless the headlight of a motor vehicle and the reflector is aligned at a sufficiently close distance before the reflector becomes fully visible to the motorist, by which time is often too late to stop. In addition, the user of the vehicle may not be visible once he or she leaves the vehicle, for example by falling off, and many high speed vehicles, such as skate boards or roller skates, are not equipped with any sort of reflector.
As an alternative to reflectors, it is known to provide active lighting in the form of incandescent bulbs or light emitting diodes, at least on some vehicles and on clothing. Such conventional lighting devices have the disadvantages of requirements of fragility, bulkiness, complicated wiring systems, difficulties in attachment to a the soft material, an inability to bend with the material, high power consumption, and narrow viewing angle.